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Corruption- A threat to Democracy

Corruption – A Threat To Democracy Human history has so far witnessed three modes or
forms of governance: (a) governance by a monarch / king; (b) rule by a dictator; and (c)
democratic governance. Through a process of trial and error, democracy with all its flaws
has come to be accepted as the best form of governance. India with its great heritage
of moral values, culture and civilization is undoubtedly the largest democratic country in the
world. After independence, India accepted the Parliamentary form of democracy in which all
powers of the state were vested in the hands of elected representatives of the people.
Parliament and State Legislatures are the most important pillars of Indian democracy.
People elect their representatives periodically and elections form an integral part of
our democratic system. The genuine aspirations and expectations of the people can be
reflected only through fair elections. It was thus obligatory on the part of the Members of
Parliament (MPs) and the Members of the Legislative Assemblies (MLAs) in the states to
behave according to the norms laid down in our Constitution and to strive to protect our
great heritage and moral values. But the proverbial dictum, ‘Power corrupts and absolute
po

In our system both the bribe giver and the bribe taker are guilty. Corruption is endemic in a
developing country. The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 was passed to curb
corruption. As far as the Indian system goes accountability is missing. This meant that
bureaucracy must be committed not to the constitution but to the government of the day. It
marked the fading away of the Gandhian and Nehruvian era of principled politics and the
emergence of new politics, the keynote of which as amorality. Poverty is viewed as the
major cause of corruption and it leads many honest persons to dishonesty. The continuous
decline in moral standards in public life is yet another reason for corrupt practices. Those
who committed several atrocities on the people became their masters overnight. The
system fails to serve the common man and as a People we have been forced to relinquish
the ideals that inspired the founders of modern India to envision the country as a model of
people-oriented politics and development for the rest of the world. According to the
judgement of the supreme court in the JMM case, the bribe receiving MP who has to do
some activity within the Parliament is not guilty but thebribe giver even if he is a Member of
Parliament is guilty. To ensure effective governance of the country we have three major
wings, the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. There are three crore cases
pending in the Indian courts. The third set of beneficiaries in this process were the
unscrupulous contractors who bribed their way to lucrative government contracts and the
kin and relatives of politicians and bureaucrats. The fundamental changes in the
Constitution which would insulate executive authority from legislature and include
appropriate checks and compliances against the abuse of political power.

Some topics in this essay:

Parliament According, Assemblies MLAs, Santhanam Committee, Index CPI, Corruption Act, Executive
Judiciary,Magistrates Collectors, Democracy Human, Governors Indiatms, British Empire, political
system, moral values,political parties, corruption corruption, public servants, passed curb corruption, bribe
giver, curb corruption,democratic system, independent india, political corruption, prevention corruption
act, heritage moral values,

2012

8
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Front page
Corruption and Democracy (Part 4 of 5)
(This article is Part Four of a five-part series on "The Clash of Capitalism and
Japanese Democracy in East Asia." For an introduction to the series, please see Part One.)
A Japanese version Corruption, unfortunately, is everywhere, but corruption on the
of my home page. Japanese scale is truly outstanding. Last month, Yasuyuki Yoshizawa
Masters thesis was arrested for accepting 4.3 million yen (about US$330,000) from
On the Japanese various banks. The kicker is that Yoshizawa was a high-ranking official
Self Defense Forces of the Bank of Japan, and thus responsible for overseeing the banks that
were spending up to $750 a night entertaining him at high-class
Gun control restaurants and golf clubs. In the wake of this latest scandal (and the
Gun violence in scandals keep piling up in Japan), the Governor of the Bank of Japan,
America, and what Yasuo Matsushita, has resigned his post in shame.
can be done
The manifestations of corruption creep up in all aspects of government.
Picture gallery There is big corruption in a big arena, like the Bank of Japan scandal,
and there is small corruption in a small arena, like a police officer that
Writings
accepts a bribe to forget about a traffic violation. Any type of
Friends corruption, though, no matter how big or small, is a blow to democracy.
In a system that should be ruled by transparent and predictable
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processes of law, corruption creates favorites, loopholes, and
connections-based advantages, and fosters an unpredictable and opaque
rule of personality.
Corruption is part and parcel of a capitalist system, where money is
good, and more money is better. Certainly, corruption is not endemic to
capitalism, nor limited to it. Indonesia, a heavily bureaucratic nation, is
among the most corrupt nations in the world, and the former Soviet
Union was rife with corruption in the party bureaucracy. Part of
corruption, after all, is human nature. Even faceless, soulless
government bureaucrats want to live in a nice place, dress well, and feel
important, and no governmental system has a shortage of them. But
capitalism poses a special, structural problem vis-a-vis corruption.
Although virtually all known and tried societal systems value money,
capitalism does so more openly and more pointedly than any other. A
system that specifically values money so highly creates a moral hazard
for people in positions of power to accept money for favors.
Other than just the human drive for a nicer life, which obviously cannot
be addressed in any useful way in a democracy without legislating away
basic freedoms, there are several factors that contribute to corruption.
First and foremost, a problem with government jobs, especially in
developing nations, is low pay. From Albania to Indonesia to Mexico to
Zimbabwe, low-level government officials, including police officers,
are often paid very little, for the basic reason that their developing
governments cannot afford very much. Second, corrupt officials in
many nations have little chance of being caught. Especially in nations
that are just beginning to have a professional civilian police force,
hiring additional hands for an Internal Affairs Division seems like a
pipe dream when their main police force is often understaffed, and
quality officers are rare.
Low salaries and limited enforcement resources, however, are generally
a problem for lower-level officials like police. High-level officials in
nations with little transparency in the decision making process can get
away with corruption that makes a police officer accepting cash in
return for forgetting about a speeding violation seem downright angelic.
If there is a lack of transparency, few people will ever see, or notice,
even the largest bribes. Thus, the lack of transparency is a tremendous
contributing factor to corruption.
The last contributing factor to corruption is the incredibly light penalties
for those who are caught. For example, several Japanese officials have
been caught at corruption, little more than a slight career interruption. In
1974, the incumbent Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei was forced to step
down after accepting millions of dollars in bribes from the Lockheed
Corporation. He spent just over 20 days in jail, and was never convicted
-- he died before the famously slow Japanese justice system brought
him to trial. The current Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto
has admitted he received $760,000 in political donations from two
companies that bribed several senior administration officials.
Hashimoto claims the donations were received in accordance with the
law, and this case looks unlikely to be probed any further.
The underlying reason for the corruption of politicians at such a high
level is generally to earn money for re-election campaigns, certainly the
case in the United States. But in Japan, where campaign periods are
rather short, and spending is strictly governed and limited by law,
elections are not as big as an expense as the costs of actually being in
office. In 1987, a Diet report estimated that annual expenses for newly
elected members of the Diet were five times greater than the average
amount provided by the government. These expenses included not only
the maintenance of office staff, but "gifts" to supporters and
contributors on the occasions of weddings, funerals, and other events,
where giving large amounts of cash is a time-honored Japanese custom.
The officials, obligated to pay such monies, have to get them from
somewhere. So even the regulation of election campaigns may not solve
the problem of high-level corruption.
If politicians have a strong incentive to obtain cash, corporations have
an even stronger one: their very survival. In a capitalist society, where
the strongest (i.e., most profitable) companies survive, there is a greater
incentive to make money by any means possible. Naturally, if the
likelihood of getting caught is low, and the penalties for being caught
are lower, there is little incentive for companies not to behave ethically.
As Professor Iwao Taka of Japan's Reitaku University said, "Even the
detection of [the Lockheed] scandal was not enough to bring the main
concern of Japanese business back to corporate social responsibilities.
The reason was simply that of most importance for Japanese
corporations was their own survival...thus not even this scandal could
bring Japanese business and academia forward to discussions about
business ethics."
One method of blending corporate and political corruption that has a
long tradition in Asia is known in Japan as "amakudari," which literally
means "descent from heaven." A bureaucracy official, forced to retire at
the age of 65 (or so), "descends" into a plush private sector job, where
his only functions are to schmooze with his old buddies at the ministry,
lobby for his company, and collect his fat paycheck. And since his
buddies at the ministry are looking forward to their rich amakudari
retirement, they are often happy to oblige their private-sector friend
with friendly legislation.
Solutions to amakudari are difficult at best. A nation can crack down on
this sort of behavior only so much. After all, a democracy should defend
the right of the individual to freely associate with employers of his
choosing as much as possible. Banning amakudari in Japan would bar
individuals from working for companies after they leave government
service, which would not only violate their constitutional right to work
for whom they choose. It also risks wasting pools of talent, not to
mention providing one more reason for the nation's best and brightest to
forgo public service in the first place.
So faced with this mountain of corruption, and the Mount Everest of
problems in combating it, just how does a nation fight corruption? To
start with, a nation attempting to fight corruption should recognize the
similarities and the distinctions between low-level and high-level
corruption. There are several solutions that can be used to attack both,
but some solutions that are effective on one can be ineffective on the
other.
To fight low-level corruption, such as the police officer wanting cash
instead of justice, several measures that fall into the "easier said than
done" category are necessary. First, there must by higher pay for public
officials. This measure may not reduce incentive for a policeman to
supplement a meager salary through corruption, as any salary can be
supplemented no matter how plush. But it can help fight the attitude that
a salary must be supplemented due to its meager size. Second, there
needs to be better transparency and oversight in the decision making
process, in order to make it more difficult for offenders to violate the
law. And third, legislatures should enact stricter penalties to serve as a
deterrent to corruption.
To fight high-level corruption, all of the above measures are necessary,
plus a little more. After all, high-level corruption is generally by its very
nature more harmful to a nation, especially a developing nation, because
of the essential circumvention of the democratic political process. When
a police officer is bribed to forget a ticket, one person escapes justice,
and society as a whole is not terribly impacted. But when a Prime
Minister accepts money to change national policies, positions of
national import may be swayed from the platforms upon which the
people elected him.
So to fight high-level corruption, stricter penalties (including being
barred from public office), higher transparency, and higher pay are
necessary. (And yes, higher pay is necessary -- even US Congressmen
earning $100,000 a year could easily make far more in the private
sector.) But more action is necessary to fight high-level corruption,
including fines which are well above the potential damages, prison time
for even purely white-collar actions, full disclosure of campaign
funding, and strict limits on campaign finances. Contrary to the opinion
of the United States Supreme Court, election financing is not free
speech, but the free allowance of the corporate purchase of public
officials. If the United States cannot get money out of its politics, how
is it supposed to set an example for developing nations with traditions
of corruption in public policymaking?
More than mere legislation is necessary, though, for a society to combat
corruption truly and effectively. The most important measure that can
be taken is to focus on the ethics of corruption at the grass roots level,
especially in education. Many Asian countries are rising to this
challenge. A 1993 report issued by the University of Pennsylvania's
Wharton School of Business indicates that universities in Korea,
Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia have
hired business ethicists, and are attempting to focus on ethics in
business. The focus of education must seek not only to inform citizens
of the concrete harms of corruption, but perhaps even to instill a sense
of pride and shame. Doing the right thing for one's country should be
taught as its own reward, simply for the good it can do. Doing the
wrong thing should be viewed with contempt.
Granted, Japan is a culture where "shame" is still very much alive.
Several Finance Ministry officials have hanged themselves over the
scandal I mentioned at the outset of this column, yet there is still
widespread corruption in Japan. But shame at being caught is no
substitute for shame at the act itself. This distinction must be instilled in
the citizens of a democratic nation. It is the duty of a bureaucracy to
teach its people shame; and it is the duty of the democracy to ensure
that the lessons are well learned by the bureaucracy. If a nation wishes
to transform itself into a democracy, it must instill democratic values
from an early age. A system of campaigning and voting is not
democracy, although it can be grafted onto a pre-existing system to
make it seem like a democracy. Systems are not normatively
democratic; values are.
Of course, there is a giant, glaring hole in all of these grand steps to
fight corruption. All of them, from higher salaries to greater oversight to
better education, require cash. None of these policy prescriptions can be
transformed into workable law without the resources necessary to
pursue them. And as discussed before, many nations that desperately
need to fight corruption simply do not have the money to take these
sorts of steps. How do nations with high democratic ideals, but without
the money to back them up, develop a system that is effective both
democratically and economically? This question and more, in the
conclusion of the series, next week.

Part 1: The Clash of Capitalism and Democracy

Part 2: Big Business and Democracy
Part 3: International Institutions and Democracy
Part 4: Corruption and Democracy
Part 5: Blending Capitalism and Democracy

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